


i love you too

by calscardigan



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bill Denbrough-centric, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Sort Of, bill denbrough is so disgustingly in love with mike hanlon, clown amnesia, dreams about childhood friends are interesting when you can't remember them, dreams bringing back memories, like it's not even funny - Freeform, minimal dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:33:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28746999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calscardigan/pseuds/calscardigan
Summary: Sometimes when Bill sleeps, he dreams of half remembered faces in places that look hazy but feel like home. When he wakes up he finds himself struggling to recall the names he knows went with those faces, the names that went with the feelings those faces drudged up.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon
Kudos: 9





	i love you too

Sometimes when Bill sleeps, he dreams of half remembered faces in places that look hazy but feel like home. When he wakes up he finds himself struggling to recall the names he knows went with those faces, the names that went with the feelings those faces drudged up.

Other times when Bill sleeps, he dreams of all encompassing terror somewhere dark, cold, and hard. He watches the not-quite-faces of his friends as they search for something that Bill doesn't want to remember. He feels his chest fill with fear and something heavy like a brick weighing down directly on his heart. Grief. His hazy dreams are filled with the remains of a tattered yellow raincoat and people he just cannot for the life of him remember surrounding him at his most vulnerable, and he wants to remember, but a few nights later he's in the dark, dirty and trembling with the overwhelming feeling that something much bigger than anything he's ever known was out for his blood, and Bill is glad he's forgotten.

But through everything there's one constant, one face that's always there. Always pulls the same feeling from somewhere in Bill's stomach, like his heart is entirely too big for his chest and even then it couldn't possibly fit all the love he had in his soul for this face. Dark skin and sparkling laughter catches in Bill's sternum like the one spark he needed to set ablaze all the kindling of emotions he had and replace them with complete and total adoration. And when Bill wakes up from dreams of lying in a field that went on for miles and cautiously placing his hand over his other half's and feeling like finally, _finally_ , everything could be alright, he can't help but think that he'd never felt that way with anyone else, certainly not with Audra. He turns over and ignores the thought, pretends he doesn't know that neither he nor his wife had ever loved each other like that, and the proof is right on the tip of his tongue, like an itch he just can't reach no matter how hard he tries, like a match that refuses to light.

One day when he's visiting Maine with his family, Bill thinks he catches a glimpse of his phantom lover, but when he whips his head around, all he sees is a sea of faces he doesn't recognize. He wonders to himself, as Audra asks what's the matter with him, if he would recognize them if they were standing right in front of him. He isn't sure if he would.

Every morning when Bill wakes up he lies still in bed, searching for the missing name, searching for the last puzzle piece he needs to solve the mystery, and every time he comes up completely empty handed, he asks himself how he could possibly forget someone who made him feel so completely whole. He remembers nearly every acquaintance from his college days, could easily pick almost each and every one of them out of a lineup, but this person who occupied such a large space in his life, in his heart….Bill can't get a handle on so much as a name. Only half a face, a few sentences spoken dream-like in a voice he half recognized, and the laughter.

Sometimes Bill dreams of a first meeting, he hears the name come out of their mouth, but as he wakes up scrambling for a pen and paper to write it down, he forgets. Every single time, he forgets, and he begins to doubt this person was even real in the first place. Just something Bill dreamed up. No matter how real those feelings felt, no matter how much it hurts to think that it's all fake, just a product of his own subconscious.

Now when Bill wakes up from a dream of fields that go on for miles, he turns to his wife and tries to feel even a little of that feeling for her, and he pretends to succeed. Now Bill goes weeks at a time without dreaming of that face, and when he realizes it, it feels like a punch to the gut, but why? It's fake. It's all fake. Why should it feel like betrayal to forget about them? Why should that feeling feel like something sacred when it was never real to begin with?

Still, when he gets a phone call in the middle of an argument from an unknown number, he walks away and takes it.

"Bill Denbrough? It's Mike."

Bill knows the answer before he asks, but he asks anyway. "Mike who?"

"Mike Hanlon."

And the name burns through the dust and cobwebs left in his heart from years of neglect, lights up every crevice in his chest. _Mike Hanlon_. How could Bill have ever forgotten? _Mike Hanlon_. 27 years of dreaming of someone he so desperately wanted to remember, he finally remembers. Finally. Mike Hanlon.

The whole way to Derry, Bill tells himself it's been 27 years, things might be different. But as he walks into Jade of the Orient and Mike hugs him tight like he might disappear again, his heart swells in his chest. As Bill laughs by his side, walks by his side, talks by his side, fights by his side, cries by his side...nothing has changed. Not really. The same feeling fills Bill's heart as he looks at Mike Hanlon, all these years later. Like nothing in the world, nothing in the universe, is big enough to hold Bill's love for him.

Bill goes home and he and his wife get divorced. He wonders how he ever could've settled for a life like that when he'd felt what he feels for Mike before. He may have loved Audra, but not like that, certainly not anymore.

And when Mike calls, Bill can hear it. He hears it in the way Mike says, "I love you, man." The same thing Bill has felt for so long. The feeling that had Mike reading his books and watching his movies, no matter how terrible the endings were. Mike loves him too. _Mike loves him too_. Bill's heart skips a beat with the feeling of it. He didn't think he could have this, not really. It was enough to just feel this, to know that he loved Mike with everything in him, even when he didn't remember his face or his name, even when all he remembered was his laughter. But Mike loves him too. He can have this. And all he has to do is say,

"I love you too."


End file.
